Alto Madness ... Interesting

[Larry Kart]

Am working my way through a recently purchased (used) copy of the 1981 LP reissue of this material (sadly, it's the only version I know of that includes the 10:30 version of "Bird Feathers" that originally appeared on a separate New Jazz anthology album of that name -- the OJC CD of "Alto Madness" lacks that track). In any case, this was a somewhat rough but very intense day (May 3, 1957) in the studio. Jackie is in top form for that time, in part I think because Jenkins has some Jackie in his own playing, filtered though his own sensibility, and when Jenkins comes up with something that Jackie might have thought of but didn't, Jackie finds this challenging/stimulating. It's not exactly a cutting contest -- in part because that's not quite the way these guys were wired, in part because Jackie is just a stronger, more together player than Jenkins -- but it is pretty intense. Nice rhythm section too -- Wade Legge, Doug Watkins, Art Taylor (who on this day was as plugged in to Jackie as he ever was on record IIRC). Jenkins, as Ira Gitler says in his nice notes, is more fluid and overtly Bird-like (sometimes quite formulaically so) than Jackie, but he has (perhaps half stumbles into) some odd/interesting knots and whorls that are different from what other stylistically related players were coming up with at the time (maybe some hints of Frank Strozier, who Jenkins must have run across back in Chicago). Also, it seems as though Jenkins' relative melodic flightiness on some of the longer tracks inspires some of the most structurally iron-clad playing from Jackie that I'm aware of before, say, "New Soil." The title track is quite an odyssey -- 38 blues choruses of alternating solo work (including eight chorus of "fours" and two of "twos") from two guys who are not always easy to distinguish unless you're paying close attention, which is worth doing IMO. All in all, some fine music plus a strong sense of these men living and playing in that place in time.

Edited November 15, 2006 by Larry Kart

[JSngry]

It's sessions (and players) like this one (and these two) that drive home how few players really got Bird. These guys did. Clarence Sharpe was another one, as was/is (in his own "man from another time" way) Charles McPherson.

Plenty of people got the basic vocabulary, but few got the, for lack of a better word, "flavor", that great emotional-through-harmonic & rhythmic beauty of things being more than one thing at the same time yet still being one thing. It's the latter quality that to me is the true essence of Bird, not the licks. And these guys got that.

[Late]

I've always liked this session. One the surface, it seems like just "another" blowing session, but it's better crafted than that. Recommended for those who haven't yet heard it.

Larry, you might want to pick up VICJ-41276 (Alto Madness) if you buy Japanese reissues on compact disc. Not only does this disc have the complete recording session (with "Bird Feathers"), but it's fairly cheap (1500¥), and, best of all, is in original MONO! A great-sounding reissue. I got my copy from Hiroshi.

[Larry Kart]

Late -- The Prestige 1981 LP reissue I have is in mono and has the whole date, so I'm cool. Also, Jenkins' line "Pondering" is a nice example of how, as you say, things seem "crafted" here at times beyond what was the norm on a Prestige blowing date.

Jim -- Fine way to put it. In that vein, perhaps, every time I hear Jackie cutting his own path through that dark lovely dangerous forest, it kind of chokes me up. On the one hand, it was a tremendously urgent task (for him, his musical colleagues, and for us and for the world as a whole, if the world as a whole knew or cared); on the other hand, who outside those initial smallish circles knew or cared? Strange how this is analogous in a way and up to a point to someone like Willem De Kooning, who wrestled and labored for decades without anyone but himself and a few colleagues and (if you wish) a few "fans" being the wiser, and then it somehow explodes into a marketplace, where the work is now worth what about what it costs to build a nuclear weapon.

[Late]

I'm listening to this right now (track: "Easy Listening"). One thing that strikes me right now is these two guys' take on intonation. Jackie of course has his own sweet & sour approach to playing "in tune," but Jenkins does too, which is something I don't think I've noticed before. Usually, Jenkins always sounds a little sharp to my ears, but here, more often than not, he's in tune — except when, in the middle of trading fours, he decides to get somewhat humorous and does some shrinky-dink messing (and I don't even know what I mean by that, exactly) with his embouchre. Cool stuff.

(Larry -- did you see the National Book Awards finalists in poetry this year? Unusual, and refreshing, picks.)

[Larry Kart]

"Poetry finalists are Louise Glück for Averno, H.L. Hix for Chromatic, Ben Lerner for Angle of Yaw, Nathaniel Mackey for Splay Anthem and James McMichael for Capacity."

Don't know Hix, Lerner, and Mackey, so I'd guess they'd be the unusual, refreshing ones? Gluck gives me a pain; McMichael I admire/respect a lot. I have a copy of "Capacity" but haven't yet been able to/been in the mood to really get it, if I ever will.

I know what you mean about Jenkins' "shrinky-dink messing" around with his intonation/embouchre. That's one of the things I was thinking of by "odd knots and whorls." It's like maybe he has in mind the kind of side-slipping that Joe Henderson would get into several years further on, but Jenkins is moving toward that more from inside the note (and, I would guess, from the gut), which makes a big difference. Sad what Gitler's 1981 postscript suggests: "Jenkins has completely disappeared from view. When I'd run into him in the Sixties he'd sometimes be working as a messenger.... He was a shy person, with eyes that spoke more than his tongue." Ira was/is a soulful guy.

[JSngry]

It's like maybe he has in mind the kind of side-slipping that Joe Henderson would get into several years further on, but Jenkins is moving toward that more from inside the note (and, I would guess, from the gut), which makes a big difference.

Don't understand what you mean by this. Please elaborate?

[Head Man]

I have an nice vinyl copy for sale currently on ebay

[Larry Kart]

I mean that the impulse to side-slip is taking the form of sharpening or flattening the note at hand (and/or altering its timbre) such that the desire to move to an alternate harmonic plane is implied rather than

(or more than) -- as I think it is with Henderson and those he influenced so heavily -- actually moving to a note that is from that alternate harmonic plane. (Or do I not know what I'm talking about here?) As for "from the gut," I mean that Jenkins strikes me as a fairly raw, instinctive player (a la Ernie Henry, perhaps, or C. Sharpe?), while I think of Henderson as an unusually "heady" one -- someone with a method who worked out a lot of stuff beforehand. Nothing wrong with that, other things being equal, but fairly often they're not.

[JSngry]

It's all Lester Young, really, the saxophonistic ways of altering pitch & timbre through fingerings. He did it both ways (mostly timbral, though), but it's a natural outgrowth of that to take it further and see what comes after that. The instrument itself practically begs you to, believe me.

Now, as for "instinct" vs. "planned out", I know what you're getting at, but the reality is that very seldom does anybody stumble across a technique fully formed. What you hear both Jenkins & Joe doing is stuff that they both knew exactly how to do long before it got recorded.

[DukeCity]

My copy of Alto Madness doesn't have Bird Feathers, but after some poking around I found that cut on a sampler called "Bird Feathers" that also has some material from Phil Woods and Gene Quill. So, listening to McClean/Jenkins and Phil/Quill back to back, it's interesting to hear Bird being filtered through different guys.

Jim, (or anyone) would you include Phil/Quill in the list of guys who "got" Bird? They certainly have the vocabulary, but it's presented in a much more slick way than McClean/Jenkins. I dig 'em all, but there are definitely different things being offered by these guys.

[JSngry]

Jim, (or anyone) would you include Phil/Quill in the list of guys who "got" Bird?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....................

Yeah, kinda, sorta, for a little while, maybe....

But I'll take Clarence Sharpe for the block.

[DukeCity]

Jim, (or anyone) would you include Phil/Quill in the list of guys who "got" Bird?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....................

Yeah, kinda, sorta, for a little while, maybe....

But I'll take Clarence Sharpe for the block.

So, maybe there's a continuum and Jackie Mac, Jenkins, Sharpe, and Mac Pherson are on one end; Phil and Quill somewhere in there; Ritchie Cole and Greg Abate at the other end?

(Sadly, the first album with the title "Alto Madness" that I ever got was a Ritchie Cole record, when I was in high school. I liked that he could play fast 'n stuff, but I could tell something wasn't right... )

[JSngry]

Best Ritchie Cole critique I ever read was from Down Beat, sometimes in the 70s. reviewing a festival gig somewhere. Don't remember the exact quote (or who wrote it), but it was something like "Warmed over third-generation bebop is an acquired taste, one I've yet to acquire."

Great line, and one I've used for any number of things...

Edited November 15, 2006 by JSngry

[bertrand]

I was just digging Clarence Sharpe on Freddie Redd's Lonely City. He's also on Lee Morgan's first BN date.

What else is he on where he is featured prominently enough?

Bertrand.

[JSngry]

He plays one (memorable, I think) solo on "I Got It Bad" from Archie Shepp's For Losers (also to be had in this compilation ), and is on the Clifford Jordan Big Band Mapleshade side.

[Larry Kart]

It's all Lester Young, really, the saxophonistic ways of altering pitch & timbre through fingerings. He did it both ways (mostly timbral, though), but it's a natural outgrowth of that to take it further and see what comes after that. The instrument itself practically begs you to, believe me.

Now, as for "instinct" vs. "planned out", I know what you're getting at, but the reality is that very seldom does anybody stumble across a technique fully formed. What you hear both Jenkins & Joe doing is stuff that they both knew exactly how to do long before it got recorded.

Yes, but at that time wasn't it a good deal rarer to find those "saxophonistic ways of altering pitch & timbre through fingerings" being done on alto than on tenor? Also, I definitely feel that while sometimes Jenkins begins to side-slip in the soon to be more familiar, and more explicit/codified, manner of Strozier and Henderson, for the most part he leaves such impulses at the level of directional gestures (via shifts in pitch and timbre) "within the note." As for "instinct" vs. "planned out," one of the reasons I think of Jenkins as an instinctual player was that he seems so raw, perhaps tempermentally so. That is, I get the feeling that often he wasn't quite on top of the stuff he wanted to be on top of but instead was half-stumbling through it, though in doing so he ended up in some interesting places. That's one of the reasons "Alto Madness" intrigues me -- by contrast, Jackie sounds much more polished/finished than Jenkins does, and who would ever think of circa 1957 Jackie in those terms? On the other hand, as I said here and somewhere above, Jenkins' rawness/awkwardness/whatever at times leads him to places that in effect find Jackie saying, "Damn! I'll have that too."

[JSngry]

...at that time wasn't it a good deal rarer to find those "saxophonistic ways of altering pitch & timbre through fingerings" being done on alto than on tenor?

I think so, yeah, if only because altoists were on Bird's tip the way that tenorists were on Prez', at least for a while.

But Bird did it too (as did Louis Jordan, Pete Brown, & a bunch of other pre-bop altoists), and as much as I hate to admit it, a saxophone is ultimately a saxophone, alto or tenor or whatever. Just goes to show you how much "there" there was in Bird. And in Prez.

[JSngry]

...one of the reasons I think of Jenkins as an instinctual player was that he seems so raw, perhaps tempermentally so. That is, I get the feeling that often he wasn't quite on top of the stuff he wanted to be on top of but instead was half-stumbling through it, though in doing so he ended up in some interesting places.

Well, Jackie was always gigging (even w/his habit), or so it seemed. Jenkins? Not so sure. Even if you practicce constantly (and if you have a habit - if Jenkins did have one at the time, which I don't even know - you're not going to be practicing constantly unless you're a special kind of freak), I don't have to tell you that there's no substitute for regular gigging when it comes to honing those instincts. So I don't know if Jenkins' bag was as much "tempermental" as it was "circumstantial".

No matter, the cat definitely was an intersting player!

[BruceH]

Larry, you've given me good reason to dig this out and give it a close listening or two; thanks! But I'm bummed that my CD is missing a track. I had no idea. Oh well....

[Late]

For further comparison and contrast in regard to Jenkins' playing, try listening to Hank (the sextet session with Donald Byrd), where Jenkins responds fairly differently to the setting (with a tenor saxophonist and trumpet player in the front line). He plays well there, but Jackie seems to have inspired him more.

Larry -- I hear what you mean about Jackie listening to Jenkins and thinking, "Oh yeah, let me try that!" Jackie is surely the more polished player, but I think Jenkins is thinking more on that date. I really like sessions where an "instinctual" (to use your term, which I agree with) player is forced — in a positive way — into really "thinking" through his improvisations. The results often push that player into new territories (for him/for her), which inevitably make for interesting solos.

I can't get with Clarence Sharpe as much as I can get with Shafi Hadi.

[Niko]

For further comparison and contrast in regard to Jenkins' playing...

i don't know alto madness but another broadly related session which I like a lot is Paul Quinichette's "On the sunny side" which (besides Quinichette) has Jenkins in contrast to Sonny Red (so overall it's Pres Bird Bird...) (plus Curtis Fuller and a rhythm section of Mal Waldron, Doug Watkins and Ed Thipgen)

[Peter Friedman]

For those concerned about the Missing track (Bird Feathers) from the "Alto Madness" CD, here is one solution. Buy a copy of this CD - "Bird Feathers - New Jazz OJCCD-1735-2.

This CD has the missing track, plus 2 tracks by the Phil Woods/Gene Quill Quintet, and 3 tracks by a Quintet with Hal McKusick, Billy Byers, Eddie Costa,Paul Chambers, and Charlie Persip.

[DukeCity]

... and both the McClean "Alto Madness" album and the "Bird Feathers" sampler are available on emusic.com

[BruceH]

For further comparison and contrast in regard to Jenkins' playing...

i don't know alto madness but another broadly related session which I like a lot is Paul Quinichette's "On the sunny side" which (besides Quinichette) has Jenkins in contrast to Sonny Red (so overall it's Pres Bird Bird...) (plus Curtis Fuller and a rhythm section of Mal Waldron, Doug Watkins and Ed Thipgen)

That's a nice album.